Role of Counselling Interventions in enhancing Adolescents Academic Achievements and mental health : Two Case Studies

ABSTRACT Parents and teachers along with school management are concerned with students’ achievement more than ever before. This has resulted in additional stresses to students whose aim is not only to pass the exam but also to score A’s all the time. Many times this results in finger pointing among the stake holders . This adversely affects what happens in the classrooms in the name of teaching and consequently student performance leaves much to be desired. The need of the hour is to pause and ponder over what needs to be done to set things right and doing it faster if we are sincere in our efforts to enhance students’ mental health along with their academic achievement. Every one has a right to good education which implies that every student has the potential to learn and become a responsible citizen if given a conducive atmosphere. More research has been done with regards to identification of barriers to learning and little has been done on how to overcome those barriers. This paper seeks to identify intervention strategies that can be used to improve students’ performance The two case studies presented here focus on investigating factors of leading learning difficulties in Academic achievement ( in terms of score in mathematics , and developing strategies for improving the same for students with difficulty in doing so on their own. Two types of learning difficulties were identified: learned helplessness and defensive attribution . In the discussion it is amplified how students enhanced their learning capacity with the use of appropriate strategies in the interventions. And yes, intervention works.